the agreement of his confession with his consciousness) by the life of God. From this oath, which in the form bi-hajât allâh has become later on a common formula of assurance, R. Joshua, in his tractate Sota, infers that Job served God from love to Him, for we only swear by the life of that which we honour and love; it is more natural to conclude that the God by whom on the one hand, he believes himself to be so unjustly treated, still appears to him, on the other hand, to be the highest manifestation of truth. The interjectional clause: living is God! is equivalent to, as true as God liveth. That which is affirmed is not what immediately follows: He has set aside my right, and the Almighty has sorely grieved my soul (Raschi); but הסיר משׁפטי and המר נפשׁי are attributive clauses, by which what is denied in the form of an oath introduced by אם (as Gen 42:15; 1Sa 14:45; 2Sa 11:11, Ges. §155, 2, f) is contained in Job 27:4; his special reference to the false semblance of an evil-doer shows that semblance which suffering casts upon him, but which he constantly repudiates as surely not lying, as that God liveth. Among moderns, Schlottm. (comp. Ges. §150, 3), like most of the old expositors, translates: so long as my breath is in me,...my lips shall speak no wrong, so that Job 27:3 and Job 27:4 together contain what is affirmed. By (1) כּי indeed sometimes introduces that which shall happen as affirmed by oath, Jer 22:5; Jer 49:13; but here that which shall not take place is affirmed, which would be introduced first in a general form by כּי explic. s. recitativum, then according to its special negative contents by אם, - a construction which is perhaps possible according to syntax, but it is nevertheless perplexing; (2) it may perhaps be thought that “the whole continuance of my breath in me” is conceived as accusative and adverbial, and is equivalent to, so long as my breath may remain in me (כל עוד, as long as ever, like the Arab. cullama, as often as ever); but the usage of the language does not favour this explanation,
